Lavonia Completes Digital Water Meter Conversion

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

City of Lavonia water customers now have new, high-tech water meters and the city is collecting more revenue as a result.

Work to replace the old meters with new digital equipment has been an ongoing project since 2013 and began with the City of Lavonia applying for and receiving a $465,000 Georgia Environmental Finance Authority loan and grant package.

The new meters means the City of Lavonia now has a total drive-by system and meter readers do not have to stop and get of their trucks to read the meters manually.

However, Lavonia City Manager Gary Fesperman said there are other benefits to the City from the new meter system, including increased revenue.

“It’s already paying the City in lost revenue,” Fesperman said. “We did have a lot of meters out there not reading correctly and a lot of meters that were old and aged. Once a meter reaches about 10 years, it starts slowing down and does not read the usage correctly, sometimes as much as 25%.”

Fesperman said that another problem with the old system was that the old meters were not reading low flows.

“What that means that anything less than two gallons that goes through the meter doesn’t register at all,” he said. “If you have a lot of low flow usage during the month that goes on to our Lost Water which we have to account for to the State. What we bring out of Lake Hartwell, what we bring out of Crawford Creek, what we treat and what we send to town, all of that is a number. And the number we actually sell is another number. And the difference is called unaccounted for water.”

Fesperman said the new digital system will reduce the numbers between what is being billed and what the system is actually producing.

The next phase of the new water meter system will be done in the office where the City of Lavonia plans to install new software so water usage readings can be read remotely if needed.

There is no word on when that process will take place.